Grizzly bears: A big win in court

A federal appeals court has told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service it cannot take away Endangered Species Act protection from grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains.

The climate-related disappearance of whitebark pine, whose fatty cones are a crucial food source before grizzlies go into hibernation, potentially threatens the long-term survival of “ursus horribilis”, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court ruled.

“This case involves one of the American West’s most iconic wild animals in one of its most iconic landscapes,” Judge Richard Tallman, a Seattle lawyer before going on the bench, wrote in an opinion of unusual eloquence and scientific depth.

The area around Yellowstone National Park, embracing parts of three states, is a “living laboratory for the coexistence of people and grizzlies in close proximity,” Tallman wrote.

The Fish and Wildlife Service along with states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming had sought to “de-list” the grizzlies by removing their status as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Over the last 35 years, under the law’s protection, grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone have rebounded: The once-decimated population now numbers between 500 and 600 bears, and the bruins’ range has expanded by 48 percent.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council, aided by scientific researchers, challenged the proposed de-listing. “We had heard Wyoming was ready with a hunting season, so this ruling is particularly important,” said Louisa Willcox of the NRDC.

The whitebark pine is found at high elevations in the Rockies. But climate change has caused the pine bark beetle population to explode.

Aerial views of high forests in Yellowstone Park, and adjoining lands in Montana and Wyoming, reveal wide swaths of grey trees that have died, and orange trees that are dying.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has argued that grizzlies are “notoriously resourceful omnivores” that can adapt to the poss of a food source.

Tallman disagreed.

“Based on the evidence of a relationship between reduced whitebark pine seed availability, increased grizzly mortality to reduced grizzly reproduction, it is logical to conclude that an overall decline in the region’s whitebark pine population would have a negative effect on its grizzly bear population,” the judge wrote.

The judge’s opinion became pointed as Tallman wrote: “Now that this threat has emerged, the Service cannot take a full-speed-ahead, damn the torpedoes approach to de-listing.”

Chris Servheen, grizzly recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Idaho Statesman: “We have to do a better job of explaining why the loss of the whitebark pine is not something that would inhibit the recovery of Yellowstone grizzly bears.”

Conservation groups vow to carry on the battle.

The future of the bears, wrote Tallman, involves “a host of scientific, political and philosophical questions.”